


Death or Victory

by hatebeat



Series: Putting the gears in motion [20]
Category: Metalocalypse
Genre: Gen, Snakes N' Barrels
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-01-30
Updated: 2014-01-30
Packaged: 2018-01-10 14:08:41
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,476
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1160599
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hatebeat/pseuds/hatebeat
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><i>December, 1984 - Los Angeles.</i> Even if he didn't make the right choice, who cares?</p>
            </blockquote>





	Death or Victory

"What the fuck do you _mean_ they turned us down?" Pickles fumed, tossing his cigarette to the pavement. 

"They're booked full for the next month, man, I dunno what to tell you," Tony told him with a shrug, fishing a cigarette of his own from his jacket pocket. 

"That's the fourth place this week!" He stamped his heel over the cigarette butt, scraping it across the ground in annoyance.

"Be cool, Pickles- that's just how it goes sometimes," Bullets said, and that was suppose to be somehow reassuring, but it wasn't at all. Pickles hadn't come to LA to _fail_. He'd come here to make a new life for himself, to blow the fucking place up with his music. But when the only places that would give him a stage were open mic nights and busy street corners (and at certain times of the day, he couldn't even get those!), he wasn't sure how the hell he was supposed to do that. "It'll pick up."

"Yeah, we just have to keep getting our name out there as much as possible," Sammy added.

"Yeah, whatever," Pickles muttered, putting a new cigarette to his lips. Maybe these guys couldn't understand, but he'd sacrificed a lot in order to get here. Pickles was starting to worry he'd made the wrong choice. LA was fun and all, but what was here for him, really? Was this really where he belonged?

But there was nothing to be done about it. It was the choice he'd made, so now he had to make the best of it. They didn't want to give him gigs? Fuck that- he'd make them.

After being rejected _again_ , Pickles wanted nothing more than to go home and play his guitar furiously, crank it all the way up. It wasn't an ideal living situation, but crashing on Sammy and Bullets' couch offered him at least a little more privacy than living in a hostel. And they were being good about it, letting him save up a little from the shitty vendor job he'd picked up so that he could get himself on his feet. But no matter how much he wanted to go away and shut out his fears and worries with a good jam session, the rest of the guys coerced him into going to a bar instead, and Pickles was just as okay using alcohol to shut off his brain as he was with using his guitar.

They drank at one bar until someone saw Tony passing drinks to Pickles and they got kicked out; but unfazed, Tony led them to the next place, a place they were all familiar with, a place that had open mic tonight, and even though it was getting a little late in the evening, they might be able to squeeze themselves onto the list.

The four of them had a few more drinks and when Tony backed into a chick and knocked her off of a bar stool they were nearly kicked out of this place as well, but the lady wasn't hurt, and right after that, turned out that an act on the list turned turned in early, so they got some space on stage after all. Snakes N' Barrels got up there and they were drunk enough to play 'Glamour Girl Sex', a song they'd written just last Tuesday and had barely finished. 

They did get kicked out for real after they got off the stage, when some asshole slung in insult at Sammy and Pickles slugged the guy in the face. He left the bar with blood on his knuckles, his Les Paul over his shoulder, and his bandmates by his side, and Pickles started to remember why he'd come all the way to LA after all.

The metro had stopped running by then, so they were left with no choice but to pile all four of their asses into a cab. Between the four of them, fare home wouldn't be a problem. But as the cab neared their neighbourhoods, Pickles leaned forward from where he was squished between Tony and Sammy in the back seat.

"Dude, just keep drivin'. I ain't ready to go home just yet."

"Where am I headed kid?" the cabbie asked, but Pickles didn't have a clue. In the front seat, Bullets pointed toward a sign. He had them covered.

They spilled out of the cab in Santa Monica with just barely enough money between the four of them to pay for their trip, but they'd worry about how they were going to get home later. It didn't matter for now because nobody on Santa Monica Boulevard looked like they had any plans to turn in anytime soon. Their feet were tired and dragging and the alcohol was partly to blame, but none of them uttered a single complaint. 

By time they made it to the pier, the glow of neon lights had grown sparse, and those that still shown illuminated a mostly empty boardwalk in the shadow of a looming, silent ferris wheel. A few bums loitered, but the four of them knew they could hold their own if they stuck together.

It was Sammy who ran down to the end of the pier first, not burdened with a guitar case. He stepped up on the rail and leaned over the edge, looking down into the black water. When the rest of them caught up and dropped their instruments on the wooden walkway, Tony snapped the back of Sammy's suspenders, hard. 

Sammy whirled around red-faced as the rest of them struggled to barely contain their laughter, but Sammy got over it once he managed to snatch the hat from Tony's head and settle it down over his own.

Pickled climbed up onto the railing and swung his legs over, climbing onto the outside and leaning back against it. Like that, he felt like the whole world was his. All he could see was the black expanse of the ocean, and it was laid out before him like it was his for the taking. 

An arm slid around his chest.

"Careful, kid. You're gonna fall," Tony told him.

"Ain't like it's too deep to swim," Pickles laughed and leaned back against him, taking in a deep breath of the salty air mixed with Tony's cologne.

"If you want to get that close, let's go down on the beach," Bullets suggested. Tony helped pull Pickles back onto the right side of the railing before they gathered their instruments.

Once they made it onto the sand, Pickles discarded his guitar case and tore off his shoes and socks. It wasn't warm, per se, but he was a far cry from being cold. Pickles rolled his jeans up to his knees and walked right down to the edge of the water.

"It's probably not warm enough to swim," Bullets cautioned him, plopping down in the sand and prying open the worn metal clasps of his guitar case. 

"C'mon, dude, I never seen it so warm in December," Pickles said earnestly. Back home it was probably like ten degrees or something, but here Pickles was on the beach, getting his feet wet in the middle of Winter. Yeah, that was damned nice. 

Pickles had no plans to swim- not really- but he stood in the surf, the water moving in and lapping at his ankles, and he squatted down to let it wash over his hands, too. His toes started to sink into the sand as the tinny sound of an unplugged guitar started up behind him. 

There were things he left behind in Tomahawk when he came here. There wasn't much, though. And coming here was a huge risk. What if he blew it? If he failed? If everything had been a huge fucking waste? Every failure he faced, Pickles started kicking himself on the inside, beating himself up for coming all the way out here at all.

But wasn't it enough that he was _happier_ here? He felt guilty being _too_ happy, considering the circumstances with Donny, but...

If he wanted to live his life, he had to reach out and take charge of it.

He stayed there until his fingers were swallowed up by the sand along with his feet, until he heard, just barely, Tony's fingers plucking the strings of his bass. But as much as he could look out into the ocean and think that the world was his for the taking, it was really the guys behind him who made it worth taking in the first place. Pickles got to his feet and ran his salty, sandy hands back through his hair and turned to join them, grabbing right away for his guitar.

Who gave a fuck if he had to go to his shitty job in the morning? They had the beach to themselves until the sun came up.


End file.
